Classical Conditioning

Watson and Rayner aimed to investigate; ‘Can we condition fear of an animal, e.g., a white rat, by visually presenting it and simultaneously striking a steel bar?’ (B.Watson, R.Rayner, 2000). To test this method the case study was carried out in a controlled lab-based setting, with participant observation. To first eliminate any participant variables, little Albert at nine months of age was subject to a successive viewing of a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey, a dog, with masks and without hair, along with cotton wool, burning newspaper and other variables. (B.Watson, R Rayner , 1920). Manipulation was the most common reaction to these encounters (attempts to touch or engage with the stimulus presented), Watson and Rayner (1920) write ‘At no time did this infant ever show fear in any situation.’

One who encounters phobias has to deal with a collection of uncontrollable symptoms when their

and Phobias, an online article by kidshealth.org Fear is simply your body reacting to something

The biological explanation for the acquisition of phobic disorders establishes that phobias are caused by genetics, innate influences and the principles of biochemistry. This theory recognizes that an oversensitive fear response may be inherited, causing abnormal levels of anxiety. This is illustrated in the basis of inheritance, particularly the adrenergic theory that convicts that those who have an acquisition to phobic disorders consequently show high levels of arousal in the automatic nervous system, which leads to increased amounts of adrenaline, thus causing high levels of anxiety.

“While biological factors certainly increase the vulnerability to developing fear and phobia, findings have not yet confirmed that these behaviors are controlled by biological mechanisms” (Rofé). Treating and understanding, psychoanalysis, phobias are believed to be a defense mechanism against trauma that might have been brought up as child. It still debated wether phobias are biological or created through life experiences. Due to varied experiments and evaluation, stating phobias derive from young childhood traumas would be untruthful and not factual. In the theory of psychoanalytic fear and phobias are created if the child remembers the experience which have brought

Though the experience of phobias is relatively common and their physical characteristics are generally well understood, there is no real consensus on the neurobiological basis of phobias. Instead, there are currently several different models and theories that work to try to understand how and why phobias occur in the human brain. Most hypotheses regarding phobias take a different approach, from biological to psychoanalytic to evolutionary. Is there one model that seems "less wrong" or more satisfying in our efforts to understand the biology of phobias? Using the various models, how do phobias seem to come about? How does thinking about phobias add to our understanding of the brain and behavior?

Dog: Once the test began with the dog approaching the child he did not react violently as he did with the rabbit. He did not start crying until the dog walked away. When the dog approached the child the second time he leaned to one side and started crying (Watson J. B., & Rayner, R.,

Albert’s baseline reactions to the stimuli were noted. He showed no fear when presented with a rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, a mask with hair, or cotton wool. When Albert was 11 months old the experiments started.

After several combined events of the white rat and the loud noise, Watson and Rayner also tested if other furry animals such as a rabbit and a dog also elicited a fear response. They discovered that in fact, they did. Even a fur coat, cotton, and a Santa Claus mask caused “Little Albert” distress. This study revealed that if a child is conditioned to be afraid of an animal, this fear can shift to other animals without the distinct conditioning for each animal (Jones, 1960). This concept is known as generalization, which is the

Phobia in clinical psychology context is an irrational fear of something or situation. The person suffering from phobia will try their best to avoid their phobia. In the extreme case that the person suffering from the phobia cannot avoid it, they will attempt to endure through the situation with a lot of distress ADDIN EN.CITE Swanson1986158(Swanson, 1986)15815817Swanson, Guy E.Phobias and Related Symptoms: Some Social SourcesSociological ForumSociological Forum103-130111986Springer08848971http://www.jstor.org/stable/684555( HYPERLINK l "_ENREF_2" o "Swanson, 1986 #158" Swanson, 1986). Phobias can cause difficulties in a person performing their daily activities.

It is seen that the rats promptly learned to associate a taste CS with a UCS of nausea but not with the foot-shock, where the audiovisual CS was conditioned to the foot-shock but not to nausea (Walker 1995).

Psychological Explanations of One Anxiety Disorder Phobias are an example of an anxiety disorder and the psychological explanations of these are cognitive, psychodynamic, behavioral and social factors. The Behavioral, Psychodynamic and social factors of the psychological explanation will be discussed in greater detail. Behavioral explanations say that all behaviour is learnt whether it is normal or abnormal and this approach has been applied to humans and animals.

The goal of the experiment is to determine whether sniffy the rat will associate a flash of light with the tone which is presented with a conditioned stimulus of a tone. It is predicted that sniffy will eventually learn to associate to light with the tone and this will elicit a conditioned response in terms of the shock presented in stage one. There were four stages in the experiment each consisted of five trials over the course of five minutes, the first stage was shown with the first stimulus of a medium tone followed by a second stimulus of a shock on high. The second stage had a first stimulus of a medium light followed by a medium tone. The third stage included only a medium tone and the fourth stage was presented with a medium light.

In general, a phobia refers to “extreme [and] irrational fear reactions” (Powell, Honey, & Symbaluk, 2013, p. 190). Phobias are developed through a process called classical conditioning. Classical conditioning involves “a process in which one stimulus that does not elicit a certain response is associated with a second stimulus that does; as a result, the first stimulus also comes to elicit a response” (Powell et al., 2013, pp. 109-110).

However, phobia can even cause people to risk their health. For example, the fear of dentists can leave people suffering from it willing to risk the health of their teeth in order to avoid having to go through an exam or procedure ( MacKay). When one knows about an upcoming confrontation, it can be the reason why one can not sleep or finds it hard to focus on important tasks. Due the change in daily routine, this unrealistic fear can interfere with the ability to socialize, work, or go about everyday life, brought on by and object, event or situation. But even animals have anxieties and phobias just as every human being (www.phobia-help.de). A phobia is an irrational fear, one knows that the object or situation, one is scared off, can not hurt one, but one is still afraid. A reason for this is that the human mind can not distinguish what is real and imaginary. When one has uncontrollable anxiety attacks, he loses rational judgement, leading to complicated problems. However, anyone can develop a phobia, men and women, teens and young adults, and elderly lady or a one-year-old boy (MacKay).